The Health and Humanities Research Forum (HHRF) brings together people from across Queen Mary who are engaging critically with the idea of health. It supports research that frames ‘health’ and ‘healthcare’ as social, political, and economic concepts, and that understands medicine as culturally situated. It is also a home for research that foregrounds experiences of disability, race, gender, ageing, neurodiversity, and marginalisation in healthcare.
At Queen Mary, researchers from across the humanities, social sciences and medicine are exploring these themes using a rich array of approaches; the forum aims to bring this work into view, create a collegiate community, and to cultivate a research culture around the health humanities. Crucially, the purpose of the forum is to reach across disciplinary boundaries at QM to promote dialogue and collaboration. Together, they want to broaden the range of perspectives that inform healthcare and to transform their collective understandings of health.
In January 2024, the Forum members were awarded a grant from the QM Enhancing Research and Innovation Cultures fund. The grant allowed them to produce a report Mapping Health and Humanities Research at QMUL July 2024 [DOC 165KB], and to hold three events bringing researchers together to plan future interdisciplinary collaborations in the health humanities. For more information about these events please click on the links below:
Workshop in the Barts Pathology Museum on 9 May 2024,
Workshop on Empathy on 10 June 2024,
Workshop Future Collaborations in the Health Humanities on 1 July 2024.
The HHRF an interdisciplinary steering committee consisting of:
Richard Davies (Centre for the Cell, Barts Cancer Institute),
Bridget Escolme (Drama, School of the Arts),
Meredith Hawking (Wolfson Institute for Population Health),
Rhodri Hayward (School of History),
Evelien Lemmens (Wolfson Institute for Population Health),
Agnieszka Lyons (Linguistics, School of the Arts),
Kasia Mika (Comparative Literature, School of the Arts),
Shital Pravinchandra (Comparative Literature, School of the Arts) (Director of the HHRF),
Harvey Wells (Clinical Communications Skills, Institute of Health Sciences Education).
Dr Shital Pravinchandra (Comparative Literature, School of the Arts) directs the Forum. Dr Jenny Bangham (History) was co-directing the Forum until August 2024.
The Forum members are researchers from the Schools of the Arts, History, Geography, Law, Business and Management, and the Wolfson Institute for Population Health.
The Director would be delighted to have more members of the Forum. If you would like to join, please email her at s.pravinchandra@qmul.ac.uk.
Image: A nurse monitoring a patient after an operation and taking notes. Drawing by Virginia Powell, c. 1995. Wellcome Collection, License: CC-BY 4.0.